INFANT SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL. MORTALITY. THE death of a child appeals in a peculiar way to the emotional side of human nature, remarks M. Greenwood, Jnr., at the commencement of his paper on the above subject in the Eugenics Review. He summarises the opinion current in influential quarters as follows: A certain number of deaths occurring in the first year of life are due to causes entirely beyond human control. Some children born with grave developmental anomalies of the circulatory or nervous systems are examples; some cases of premature birth are also instances. These cases, however, although absolutely numerous, form but an insignificant proportion of the whole number of infant deaths. The bulk of the infant deaths are the result of bad feeding, bad housing, insufficient and unskilled attention, an unhygienic environment in the widest sense of the word. The removal of these immediate destructive conditions is within the sphere of an enlightened system of public administration, and we may hope, with a sufficient expenditure of money, brains, and energy, enormously to reduce the present rate of infant mortality. In one sentence, a low or high rate of infant mortality is mainly a matter of good or bad public health administration, actual or possible. After discussing the question fully, and giving the opinions of foreign specialists, along with the result of their research, he sounds a note of warning : What may be termed a collective sense of pity, the will to bring light to them that sit in darkness, to raise those who have been struck down in the battle of life, is a development of the national conscience which few outside a tiny circle of extremists would desire to arrest. Even were it true that public efforts to lower the rate of infant mortality by increasing the amount of attention othcially devoted to nurslings did not produce all the results claimed for them, it does not follow that they should be diminished. But we must remember that the bulk of persons with whom ultimately the decision rests, those who find the money, are neither very highly educated nor very logically minded. If the public-spirited men and women appealing to their fellow citizens on behalf of the children make exaggerated claims with respect to the measures they advocate, they may at first receive more support than would be accorded to modest pretensions. In the long run, however, a Nemesis will overtake them. There will be the usual revulsion, the customary recoil from exaggerated credulity to exaggerated scepticism. Before now useful therapeutic measures have been discredited in consequence of the exaggerated claims made on their behalf in the first flush of enthusiasm. EMPIRE UNIVERSITIES. THE Editorial comment of the British Columbia Magazine deals with the recent Congress of Universities of the Empire held in London. This Congress was described by Prince Arthur of Connaught as "a sort of quintessence of the wisdom of ages and the brain-power of to-day," and to British Columbia, which is laying the foundations of one of the great universities of the future, was of special interest : The keynote of the whole Congress was given in the splendid utterance of Lord Rosebery's inaugural address. It is the voice of the scholar and the statesman. "I do not think any intelligent observer can watch the course of the world without seeing that a great movement of unrest is passing over it. Whether for good or for evil-I cannot doubt for good-it is affecting not merely England and the Empire, but is affecting the entire universe. After centuries of deadness it is affecting the East. The Ottoman Empire is apparently in the throes of preparation for some new development. More striking even than that, it has touched the dormant millions of China, which for the first time in its history appears likely to take a new start and a new development, a new progress to some ideal of which we ourselves are incapable. "Is not the whole world in the throes of a travail to produce something new to us, something perhaps new to history, something perhaps better than anything we have yet known, which it may take long to perfect or to achieve, but which, at any rate, means a new evolution? We want all the help we can get for the purpose of guiding that movement, for the purpose of letting it proceed on safe lines that will not lead to shipwreck. We need all the men that the universities can give us, not merely the higher intelligences that I spoke of, but also the men right through the framework of society, from the highest to the lowest, whose character and virtues can influence and inspire others. I am looking to-day at the universities simply as machines for producing men-the best kind of machines for producing the best kind of men-who may help to preserve our Empire, and even the universe itself, from the grave conditions under which we seem likely to labour." STANDARD OF CHILD AFTER a deluge of relativity, men's minds now-a-days are reverting more and more to the quest after standards. In a paper in the Forum by Edward M. Weyer, on what the schools do not teach, we have described, though not under that name, a standard of intelligence for children. Much effort, he says, has recently been directed to the making of a trustworthy scale of intelligence. A distinction is now made between the age of the child chronologically, physiologically, intellectually, and pedagogically. The Binet tests are to ascertain the child's true mental age. The writer thus describes the tests : The eight tasks that any child should creditably perform, who has a mental age of seven years, are (1) to indicate the omissions in a figure drawn in outline; (2) to give the number of one's ten fingers; (3) to copy a written phrase; (4) to copy a triangle and a diamondshaped figure; (5) to repeat three numbers; (6) to describe an engraving; (7) to count thirteen separate pennies; (8) to name four pieces of money. WOMAN'S WORK. WOMEN IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT. Too little attention has been paid to the effect of the Reform Bill on the position of women in Local Government, says a writer in the Englishwoman for November. THE EXISTING LAWS. In the Manhood Suffrage Bill women are not mentioned at all, except in connection with the municipal franchise, and then only to take away something which some women now enjoy and to perpetuate in England and Wales certain disabilities which do not exist in London, Scotland, and Ireland. Since 1894 qualified married women have been able to vote in district and parish council elections and also for guardians of the poor, but the Acts of both 1888 and 1894 disqualified married women from voting for county and town councils. In 1907, however, the Qualification of Women (County and Borough Councils) Act contained provisions that a woman should not be disqualified by marriage from being elected as a town or county councillor. Since electors only are eligible to these councils some revising barristers have held that by necessary implication the Act of 1907 enabled qualified married women to have their names included in the burgess roll and in the list of county electors. In Birmingham, in particular, this point of law has been upheld in their favour. There the names of qualified married women are on the register, and Mrs. Hume Pinsent is a member of the City Council. The Reform Bill now determines this point of law against women. DECREEING DISABILITIES. Thus the Bill which professes to sweep away all anomalies and inequalities of the existing Franchise Law decrees disabilities for married women in England and Wales and makes their status different from that of women in Scotland, Ireland, and London. A memorial on the subject to the Prime Minister submits that there is no good reason why the local government franchise in England and Wales should be more restricted than that for women in Scotland, Ireland, or London, where the disabilities of sex and marriage do not exist, and prays that the Local Government Franchise for Women be placed on a just and uniform basis throughout the country. Should the clause in the Bill pass as it now stands, Mrs. Hume Pinsent would be disqualified from continuing her services on the Birmingham City Council. The writer also points out the heavy disabili ties under which women stand for election on local bodies. They are seldom adopted as party candidates, and it is seldom they have funds at command to carry an independent campaign to a successful conclusion. Yet no local body in these days can dispense with the assistance of women members; their place cannot be taken by any man, however efficient and fair-minded he may be. It is therefore the duty of the locality not only to invite suitable qualified women to stand, but to be ready to support those who are willing to come forward. WOMEN AND THE REFORM BILL. WRITING in the Englishwoman for November, Mr. H. N. Brailsford claims to have found a precedent for the attitude of the Cabinet to the Enfranchisement of Women in the religious controversy over the emancipation of the Nonconformists and the Catholics in 1828 and 1829. PARALLEL CASES. Early in 1828, when the Tories, under Wellington and Peel, were in office, Lord John Russell introduced a motion in favour of legislation to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts. The Ministry was divided on the question, but refrained from making the motion a party issue. Peel, who was leader of the House, spoke strongly against it, but it was nevertheless carried by a majority of forty. The Government bowed to the will of the House, facilities were given for a private Members Bill, and the Bill became law. In the same session another resolution in favour of the removal of Catholic disabilities was moved from the Opposition benches by Sir Francis Burdett and carried by a small majority on a non-party vote. Again the Ministry was divided, but Peel and Wellington were satisfied once more that it was their duty to bow to the will of the Commons. This time, however, they introduced a Bill of their own in the following year. The two cases have frequently been quoted as parallels to the present situation. WITH DIFFERENCES. The question is, Will Mr. Asquith act as did his predecessors, Peel and Wellington? Mr. Brailsford would have liked to see a resolution or a series of resolutions calling for the enfranchisement of women moved before the introduction of the Reform Bill, on the understanding that the Government would itself propose and defend their enfranchisement in its own Bill, should the resolutions have been carried. That is surely an important difference between the parallels of 1828 and 1829 and the case of the Manhood Suffrage Bill. Another vital point of difference is that the Catholics had two weapons which women lack. ford notes that they had votes and that they stood behind the bayonets of the Irish regiments, as Wellington had good reason to remember. Mr. Brailsford omits to recall Wellington's fate a year later owing to his refusal to bring in a Reform Bill. are more the largest amount of subjective effort on the part of the pupil and his observations in this respect are in favour of the women teachers. Women Mr. Brailsin their element among children than men are. How does it happen then that so little use has been made by our official educators of the splendid materials at their disposal? The only answer which the writer can think of is that the educational work of women is too human, too personal, to fit into a scheme of codes and circulars. Had there been more female control over our national education millions less would have been wasted on palatial school buildings, which are often unsuitable and insanitary, and School Boards and Education Committees would not have been so flooded with codes and circulars from Whitehall. OUR NATIONAL EDUCATION. "THE modern woman has at last found herself." This is the opening phrase of an article on Women in Modern Education contributed by Mr. W. R. Lawson to the Parents' Review for October. RESULTS OF MASCULINE METHODS. In less than a lifetime, he writes, woman has raised herself from the position of a cipher in national affairs to that of a new and original force. She not only represents the greatest and most important change that the past forty years have produced in our social and political organisation, but she is one of our highest and best hopes for the future. The modern woman's rapid rush to the front is having some awkward consequences for the modern man. It has laid him open to criticism of his methods and pretensions more searching than he ever encountered before. Hitherto he has only had male criticism to endure, and men are not given to outspoken, stimulating criticism of each other. The practical results of this irresponsible habit of the masculine mind are flabbiness and indecision, which reach their climax in our legislation. It is in education that this paralysis of masculine effort is most obvious. Equally obvious is one possible source of outside help to get the male out of the rut he has got into. The modern woman has brought with her into public life a variety of personal qualities and resources, and the present day is badly in need of them. She is in downright earnest as few men are on the great social questions of the day; she retains the sense of religion, and she has more of the essence of humanity. WHAT WOMEN MIGHT HAVE DONE. The modern woman is a crusader, and the crusade which makes the most urgent call upon her to-day is education-education in the broadest and most national sense. Mr. Law son, who is the author of John Bull and His Schools, believes that the most successful teacher is the one who can stimulate and excite THE BEST CHARACTER-FORMERS. It has indeed been a double misfortune for women and for popular education that it had not the benefit of complete female co-operation from the first. One of the latest catchwords of our professional educators is "home-making." In this art there can be no competition between the men and the women teachers. So far home making has not been very prominent in the educational policy of Whitehall. Moral or character-forming education is badly needed to-day, and in a special degree it is women's work. Given the opportunity, women, concludes Mr. Lawson, will prove themselves the best character-formers. WANTED-MORE WOMEN For twenty years the inspection of factories and workshops by women has been part of the industrial machinery of the country, but how ina'dequate is the number of women inspectors is set forth by a writer in the Women's Industrial News for October. EIGHTEEN INSPECTORS TO TWO MILLION EMPLOYEES. Year after year, says the writer, the report of the Principal Lady Inspector of Factories, Miss Adelaide M. Anderson, is hidden away in that of the Chief Inspector. Last year a staff of eighteen women travelled 122,443 miles in the vain attempt to attain their object-namely, the inspection of the conditions under which nearly 2,000,000 women and girls work in the United Kingdom. Only one district enjoys continuous, systematic, and concentrated inspection-the West London Special District, containing 3,351 registered registered workplaces and 31,513 employed ✓GE women and girls. When the effective work GEORGE MEREDITH ON WOMEN. done within this small area is deducted from the THE letters of George Meredith which appear whole, the inspection outside this boundary in Scribner for October contain some of his would seem farcical, were it not tragic. Within views on women and their demands. The folthis district each workplace is inspected once in lowing was written in 1905 :— every two years-not very often, it must be admitted. But outside this district a systematic inspection more than once in twenty-five years is impossible. COMPLAINTS OF WORKERS. The complaints which the inspectors have to deal with must occupy a great deal of time, entailing as they often do prosecutions under the Factory Act. They are classified according to their nature as relating to sanitation and safety, illegal employment, truck, etc., etc. One inspector finds that complaints received from the workers have in nearly every case been justified, and says they are most valuable in disclosing conditions which could hardly have been otherwise detected. Another, speaking of special visits spread over so wide an area as that of the Midland Division, says that to a worker in Grimsby or North Wales the address of a woman inspector in Birmingham is of little help. Complaints outside the Factory and Truck Acts have also to be dealt with. INSPECTORS' records. Many cases of children employed in dangerous processes can only be discovered by the accidental visit of inspectors. In the pottery industry much injury is also caused by the carrying of heavy weights. One boy of thirteen was found carrying a wedge of clay weighing 70 lb., while he himself weighed only 63 lb. It is on record that the average day's work of certain children in silk mills is moistening by the mouth no fewer than thirty gross of reel labels. In Ireland another problem is the employment of children at too early an age, which is made possible by the use of forged and altered birth certificates. The most difficult problem of all for the inspectors arises out of the employment of women before and after childbirth. EVASION OF THE TRUCK ACTS. The writer says little about truck, because there is so much that can be written, but two ways of evading the Truck Act regulations are cited. A system of fines is open to investigation, but an employer has only to designate as "bonus" a certain part of the sum contracted to be paid to the worker, and the question of payment is outside jurisdiction. Again, the regulations may be evaded by what is really a deduction for defective work being made in the guise of a reduction of wages. Since I began to reflect I have been oppressed by the injustice done to women, the constraint put upon their natural aptitudes and their faculties, generally much to the degradation of the race. I have not studied them more closely than I have men, but with more affection, a deeper interest in their enfranchisement and development, being assured that women of the independent mind are needed for any sensible degree of progress. They will so educate their daughters that these will not be instructed at the start to think themselves naturally inferior to men, because less muscular, and need not have recourse to particular arts, feline chiefly, to make their way in the world. MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION. THE share of women in the Administration of Missions is the subject of an article by Minna C. Gollock in the October issue of the International Review of Missions. THE CHURCH'S DUTY TO WOMEN. The writer begins by pointing out how the "prudent silence of the Edinburgh Conference as to the share of women in the administrative work of missions stimulated the consideration of a subject which had been latent in many minds-namely, the co-operation of men and women in missionary administration. The Conference of the Missionary Societies of the United Kingdom took up the matter and appointed a Committee to investigate and report upon it. In the report the word co-operation" stands for the fellow-working of men and women at the same task by means of the same organisation, and the Committee is strongly persuaded of the desirability of all possible cooperation, in the fullest sense of the word, between men and women in the administration of missions both at home and abroad. Women Royal Commissions, University Senates, Boards of Education, etc., and find the value of their opinion estimated apart from all question of sex. But on Missionary Boards such an opportunity is generally denied them. serve on CO-OPERATION OF MEN AND WOMEN. The bulk of the work of missions at home is in the hands of women; women raise the myriad small sums which form the general funds of societies, and everywhere their activities are increasing. Women's work cannot be stayed. Co-operation between men and women, it is claimed, would tend towards simplification and lessen the danger of over-organisation, and it would provide needed reinforcement for Missionary Committees. SOCIALISM AND LABOUR. GERMAN SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. A WRITER in La Revue of October 15th, M. Paul Louis, considers the moment opportune to examine the conditions of present-day Socialism in Germany. CO-OPERATION OF WOMEN. The first part of his article is devoted to statistics, which show that, numerically speaking, German Social Democracy is the most The vigorous Socialist party in the world. writer is much struck by the relative importance of the feminine element in the party. From the outset the leaders have realised that the party could not be powerful unless it included within the fold men and women and youth. It is found that when a woman joins a party she attends its meetings and meets her friends there, and she has not the desire to keep her husband at home and prevent him taking part in political activity. But that is only one reason for spreading the Of what use is a propaganda among women. proletarian movement in which half the proletariate remains indifferent, and that half the worst remunerated? Young boys and girls are carefully instructed in the Socialist doctrines by orators-one is almost tempted to say special, professors-who, in the large cities, give regular courses and teach the essential facts. Moreover, the party runs eighty journals to spread the light. WHAT HAS BEEN GAINED. What is the value of the action of German Social Democracy, and is this action proportionate to the vigour of its growth? In the Reichstag the rôle of the Social Democrats consists in demanding the widest extension of public liberty and the liberty of workers-the right of coalition, the right to strike, the right to think, write, hold meetings-but more especially the right to spread their propaganda without reserve. While they defend the liberties which they have acquired, denounce the authoritativeness of the Sovereign and the Ministry, and propose Constitutional modifications which will increase the prerogatives of those elected by the people and reduce those of the executive, their desire is to better the conditions of labour, to obtain legislation to prevent unemployment and any other scourge which threatens the working classes. The party wages a constant campaign against Pan-Germanism, armaments, colonial imperialism. FUTURE OF THE MOVEMENT. and During the last forty years the temperament of the German people has been transformed; the critical sense has been developed, and a towards the solution of its own programme. In Germany the question is being asked, Shall the Social Democratic Party hold to its old methods, or shall it have recourse to new ones, perhaps more dangerous and audacious, but more capable of achieving immediate results? There are many indications that Social Democracy is taking account of the peril of its present limited action. The intellectual labour which is at work in it, and the desire for its repression expressed in Government circles after the last election, together with the reinforcement of employers' |